My Money Blog

TLDR: ~ 7% of Tether is in risk-free, short-term, liquid assets. The other 93% may very well be dog shit wrapped in cat shit. Some additional good reading https://www.mymoneyblog.com/tether-stablecoin-risk.html

Don't force motivation on you. It won't work that way. If you reached FIRE, it is best time to enjoy every moment. Motivation will come eventually. Mostly because of insecurities we keep telling ourselves to work hard else you will be left behind. Truth is, even you become successful (in traditional sense), you will not take anything with you after death. Once you take away idea of staying motivated, you will start doing whatever you like. You can find happiness in simple things like waking up in morning, driking a glass of water or cup of coffee. See how Feyman tackeled burn out. (Burn out doesn't mean working hard and not getting results. It is a successive feeling of not adding any value to your life) https://www.mymoneyblog.com/richard-feynman-fighting-burnout-with-curi… This video might help you. Please watch till end. https://youtu.be/7sH41GWY0CU?t=71

https://www.mymoneyblog.com/talebs-thanksgiving-turkey.html "I have the story of a turkey that is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. So it’s fed for 1,000 days… " Every day somebody was able (even accidentally) to start the nuclear annihilation of the whole world (hint: it's not "just a president" who can do that, but many, many more): the complex systems and the war plans are actually maintained in which everything happens in just a few hours. Our statistics that it didn't happen yet is not a proof that an "accident" (oh, sorry, it was an error!) can't very easily happen any moment now.

I suggest getting a credit card that gives 1% cash back or some perk like this - you can see some really good deals like this on http://www.mymoneyblog.com

Now you're starting to make me angry. >ET302 ultimately turned the electric trim back on which was their death knell, in violation of procedures. No it wasn't, they'd run out of checklist, and were deep in "oh shit" territory. >A contributing factor to ET302 is that mechanical trim wheel rotation can be very difficult in some flight regimes. >A further contributing factor is ET302 left an unreasonable amount of power in and got to an overspeed situation, which makes rotating the trim wheel yet more difficult. Being trimmed a bit nose down should not kill you. It should be the kind of thing you experience in training. It was absolutely not unreasonable given the environment and stage of the flight (initial climbout) and the fact that pulling power would have led to nose drop (the opposite of what the current desired tendency of the plane was). Also, the plane was suffering by definition airspeed unreliable which dictates advancing throttles to the appropriate throttle position for the desired state of flight and leaving them there. And what training? Oh! You mean that training they should have had because MCAS was a two sensor system, and therefore required level D simulator time that never happened because the manufacturer decided to cut corners to make more sales of their "best selling plane of all time"? That training? https://youtu.be/QytfYyHmxtc Or the one hour glorified PowerPoint training that never mentioned a single detail of a flight control computer…

Here's a visual approach to cost per calorie: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-economics-o… When I made my own cost-per-calorie calculations, I found that the much maligned non-synthetic FATS are a wonderfully cheap source of calories. They're nutritious, satisfying, and make veggies taste great. There's a lot of bias against fat, and most Americans believe that eating fat makes you fat, but what does the evidence say? Look to the research, and you'll see that the opposite is true, provided you're staying away from vegetable oils and trans-fats. Here's a sample from my calculations, for comparison with the link above (where foods were chosen to make the point that low-cost foods are bad for you). I live where food is pretty cheap. The most economical picks are very unpopular, I suppose because of the popular non-evidence-based, government-touted slander of eating a high-fat diet. Yes, it's bad for rodents. I'll give you that. But when you look at humans who are eating high-fat AND low carb, the research looks pretty awesome. And we could use more of it. All prices are per 200 calories. (Grass fed items and etc. included to show the level of health and principle that can be achieved while keeping it cheap): Trader Joe's PEANUT BUTTER (non-hydrogenated, no sugar added) $.10 OLIVE OIL $.14 Roasted SUNFLOWER SEEDS, $.14, MAYO (fancy, safflower oil with no canola or soy) $.22 DRY LENTILS $.24 BACON ENDS $.26 ALMOND MEAL …

An investor is best served by keeping things as simple as possible. The most they should be concerned with is the simple ratio of stocks/bonds/cash that meets their risk tolerance and time horizon. This can be easily determined through some simple survey questions[1] or comparison charts[2]. Most fund companies even offer target date funds, which make this simple decision even easier. And by keeping things so simple, the investor is discouraged from doing harm to their investments by repeatedly transferring it between the latest fads, something which advisers are definitely prone to do. Basic investing is only made to look complicated by people who depend on selling expensive advice and guidance that most people don't need. Paying an adviser 1% per annum means you lose 30% of your balance in 40 years, not including any bad decisions they make with your money in that time. [1] https://personal.vanguard.com/us/FundsInvQuestionnaire [2] http://www.mymoneyblog.com/choosing-an-asset-allocation-step-1-decidin…

Be careful using target date funds in a non-retirement account subject to taxes: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/vanguard-target-retirement-funds-nav-drop-…

Feynman's story on how he lost the spark for physics and got it back might be instructive: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/richard-feynman-fighting-burnout-with-curi… If I were translating that, pick small interesting projects. If you start to worry that you're not going to complete it, break it down into a set of smaller interesting subproblems and only commit yourself to 1-2 of them and then re-evaluate when you finish. There is also the possibility that you're at the point where pursuing something other than programming might be more meaningful to you.

You don't earn interest on your money while it's in transit (seems to be around 1-2 days). If you're constantly shuffling money around, it might not make sense unless the rates are significantly higher. You'd have to do the math. Here's a calculator I found: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/the-ultimate-interest-rate-chaser-calculat…

You'll never get zero on _some_ products. Retailers utilize low interest rates to provide "direct" financing to incentivize purchases at their stores. This is often provided as a "promotional"[1][2] rate with the hope that it will spur purchasing in the short term and then make money on the financing in a longer timeline. Often this is done at stores which sell "durable goods" (e.g. appliances or automobiles). The takeaway? You can absolutely get 0% as a consumer, as always though there is fine print. [1]: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/be_careful_of_0.html [2]: https://www.edmunds.com/car-loan/what-you-need-to-know-about-zero-perc…

I believe OP means running a fast food joint as the owner, not a manager employee. Granted I don't know anything about that business, a quick google search comes up with an article from 2015 saying running a McDonald's provides an average annual profit of $150k so it sounds about in the right ballpark range: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/mcdonalds-franchise-cost-vs-profit.html

I'm not convinced franchises aren't far off from pyramid schemes and MLM as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_fraud Math on a McDonald's franchise is here- https://www.mymoneyblog.com/mcdonalds-franchise-cost-vs-profit.html "But if you spend 40 hours a week and only keep tabs on one location, it might really feel like you bought a job." It's looking like 5-6% net return is what you get which is worse than an index fund and you are working your ass off keeping the business running.

Some people tip their garbage collector: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/how-do-i-tip-the-trash-collector.html From a foreign perspective, where I don't think I've ever tipped anyone in my life, it's absolutely bizarre.

Vegetables have very few calories. Look at the cost per calorie: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-economics-o… Broccoli is $2.93 per 200 Calories. Doritos are 39 cents per 200 calories. That's the issue.

This: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/dilberts-one-page-guide-to-everything-finan…

Yeah, I found data on the average Mcdonalds franchise costs vs profit. http://www.mymoneyblog.com/mcdonalds-franchise-cost-vs-profit.html

I only have two personal anecdotes, one 3x and one > 4x. Both for people in their 20s, and I don't know the math but I can imagine that in group plans where rates are flat, young people cost more to insure than individually and older people cost less. Couldn't find any good data but here's a post representative of the top few google hits for COBRA vs. private: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/unemployed-cobra-vs-individual-health-insur…

"Investing in the stock market is crazy" ? http://www.mymoneyblog.com/impact-of-inflation-on-stocks-bonds-housing… Real Returns from various asset classes: Stocks: 6.9% Bonds: 2.3% Bills 1.0% Gold 2.4% Housing 1.5% Stocks crazy? Looks to me like the rational thing to invest in.

This argument is interesting, that it's being driven customers leaving banks that aren't adjusting their returns to the new Fed interest rates, but wouldn't Schwab be a beneficiary then? https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1634979304755822594 > "And, as this chart shows, THIS IS A PROBLEM FOR ALL OF BANKING, not just SVB. All banks, as I noted the retweet below, thought they could offer 0.50% deposit rates (orange) forever and no one would ever move." > "The sleeping giant, the American public, awoke at 5% (blue). Now at cocktail parties instead of regaling their friends about crypto, Ark, or the price of wheat, they are now bragging how they ditch their near 0% yield savings account for a 4.9% Schwab money market account! How smart am I!!" However not all Schwab accounts are at that rate (this seems to come down to FDIC-insured or not), for comparison to Vanguard / Fidelity see (Mar 1 2023): https://www.mymoneyblog.com/charles-schwab-cash-sweep-options.html

I might quibble with one of the points: > Put six months’ expenses in a money market account. This is presumably supposed to be the "oh crap" emergency fund ... i.e., for major, unexpected expenses which can't or shouldn't be covered by credit card. Putting this in a money market account can make it just a little bit too inconvenient to withdraw for emergencies, and it's subject to market fluctuations. My equivalent account currently has several hundred less dollars than I've paid in to it. I know it'll be better later on, but if I needed it right now, that would be a loss I'd hate to take. You can now get 2.25% APY on savings accounts at legit banks (example: https://www.mymoneyblog.com/cit-bank-savings-builder-account-review.ht… Two and a quarter sucks way worse than a healthy market, but it's about on pace with inflation and it's a lot better than a crappy market. It's also a lot more liquid: if I needed the cash right now, I could do it with a bank-to-bank transfer and I should have the funds in my checking account pretty quickly. If I wanted to liquidate my market account, there's a couple-day waiting period while things are sold and transferred around. I've found it helpful to break things down into: - cash-on-hand: what I could walk into any business and spend right now; - emergency fund: a modest stash that I could access in about one business day; - near-term investments: market accounts and the like; - long-term investments: IRA. But as other folks…

When people wonder what would happen if index funds become too popular, I usually refer them to Warren Buffet's 2005 essay, 'How to minimize investment returns': http://www.mymoneyblog.com/how-to-minimize-investment-returns-by-warre… It is essentially a thought experiment about what would happen if everyone switched to one big index fund. But, it glosses over the issue of individual security pricing and corporate management, which would become issues in a 100% pure index environment. Of course, we won't ever get a 100% pure index environment, because the closer you approach it, the more incentive there is for active managers to exist. I think what is really happening is that as more people use indexing, the less talented active managers are driven out of business. A small number of very talented active managers may eventually find themselves in a highly competitive market to exploit pricing inefficiencies, and they will end up incidentally providing management oversight and marginal pricing services to the indexers. These active managers will probably look more and more like private equity firms (taking an active hand in management), and less and less like traditional arms-length traders. As long as this small number of talented firms isn't allowed to collude with each other, or self-deal unethically by controlling management, everything should be fine. In fact, having met some less talented active traders in person, I suspect that the quality of…

>was not constantly being adjusted CPI is rarely adjusted, and all reasons are quite well explained at the BLS site [1]. As people buy less horses and more cars it makes sense to adjust the basket of goods to match what people currently buy, not what they used to buy. They also provide the methodology on how data is gathered, processed, what changes were made, why, and the effect on future numbers using both old and new methods. They select new methods because it tracks what CPI is supposed to track better than old methods. Shadowstats is often a nonsense site. The article you link provides no methodology, and as I pointed out above, if the inflation they claim existed we'd see it in massive price changes. Those changes are not there. Do yourself a favor: take the shadowstats claimed inflation, start in 1985, and compute how prices should have increased. Then look at prices of those goods from 1985 till now. You'll see it's nonsense. The Billion Prices project is an independent group trying to compute inflation as accurately as possible. Here [2] is one place showing how well BPP and CPI match up. And as above - if shadowstats, or any group had a way to compute inflation that was much different than CPI, there would be huge wealth flowing to them from simply trading derivatives based on the mismatch between the official inflation and their more accurate number. I've seen no one doing that, and I've looked. Care to show me who is making all this money based on having more…